The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2025

We're starting a new month, and the new month gives us new opportunities to recognize great achievement in ass-clownery. I had drafted a new award (the fourth Poison Ivy Cluster to his original award) for Texas Governor Greg Abbott in recognition of his dedicated support to permanent GOP rule through out-of-cycle redistricting of Texas and his escalating threats to Democratic state legislators who are opposing him, but I then thought that there are other ass clowns out there, too - not as visible, yet also worthy of note.  

With that in mind, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the award for 

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2025

is presented to

Christopher Robertson

Mr Robertson was arrested at his home in Georgia by FBI agents on August 1st on a charge of "communicating interstate threats," following a long series of racist rants and threats against black and Jewish citizens in which he claimed to be opposing the "cultural genocide" of the white race. He had earlier visited the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, telling members of the security staff that he was “the official spokesperson for the white race” and demanding to speak to a high-ranking Jewish official. He also visited other synagogues and Jewish cultural centers, issuing threats and documenting his actions in YouTube videos in which he sang violet, racist threats against Jews.

One of Mr Robertson's friends defended his actions in a Facebook post, in which he said that. “These are not charges that are gonna stick. This is not right. He has been voicing his opinion on social media and his freedom of speech. He never threatened.”

Ladies and gentlemen, Dear Readers, our Right-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2025, is Mr Christopher Robertson - a prime example of today's thoughtful and patriotic extreme right, dedicated to protecting the master race from an imagined racial, cultural, and religious apocalypse.

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday, when we will visit the world of religious beliefs. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

The White House Ballroom

By now, you've probably heard more than you want about the Versailles-style ballroom that Der Furor wants to install in place of much of the existing East Wing of the White House. He foresees a 90,000 square foot "ornately designed and carefully crafted" ballroom that will seat 650 people and cost approximately $200 million. The quiet part, not said out loud, is that it will surely be named for him. 

Who will pay for this extravagant ballroom? According to the White House announcement, "[Der Furor], and other patriot donors, have generously committed to donating the funds necessary to build this approximately $200 million dollar structure. The United States Secret Service will provide the necessary security enhancements and modifications."

Now, if you think that Der Furor, a notorious cheapskate known for stiffing his contractors, is going to shell out any part of the $200 million cost of this ballroom, I have some prime swamp land in Florida to sell you. The "other patriot donors" will almost certainly foot most of the bill, with any portion allegedly coming from Der Furor actually coming from Super PACs or other sources of funds he can tap without dipping into his own pockets. And the "necessary security enhancements and modifications" that will be provided by the Secret Service will, of course, come from you and I as taxpayers. 

We have a lot of things in this country that $200 million could be better spent on ... like education, health care, infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and all the other things this administration believes are frivolous wastes of money better spent on tax breaks for businesses and the wealthy.

The White House is a symbol of the United States. It should not reflect the gilded bling of a royal palace, but a modest, stately grandeur befitting our history as a people who repudiated rule by kings living in palaces. A gaudy Mar-a-Lago style ballroom - like the new, garishly-gilded version of the Oval Office - belongs in a royal palace rather than in The People's House. And while the President of the United States shouldn't have to rent the local VFW hall for state dinners, I believe that the modest size and understated grandeur of the White House is a more appropriate reflection of who we are as a people. If "a large and unsightly tent" is not desirable for larger events, Washington has no shortage of grand hotels and venues* which offer elegant spaces that could host state events while contributing to the local economy.

As those of you who are long-time readers of this blog may recall, I have a lot of experience in ballrooms, having spent many years competing with my wife as the "Am" half of a "Pro-Am" couple. I like ballrooms. They have their place as venues for weddings, quinceañeras, bar mitzvahs, conventions, and ballroom dance competitions ... but they don't belong in The People's House.

Have a good day. Think about how your tax dollars are being spent, and on the message a White House ballroom sends to the world about what's important to us as a nation.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* The Willard Intercontinental Hotel comes immediately to mind.

Permission to Proselytize

Back when I was a retired officer working as a contractor on the Air Staff at the Pentagon, I sat next to another contractor (from a different company) who was constantly pushing his religious beliefs on me. I repeatedly told him his comments were not welcome or appreciated, but his only response was to tell me that, although I was most likely going to hell for all eternity, he would "pray for me."

This guy was a self-important nuisance, utterly convinced that his religious beliefs were the only ones that were true and correct and that it was his job to convince me of the error of my ways. But that's all he was ... a nuisance. Today, if you are a federal employee who has the misfortune of working with a person like that who happens to be your supervisor, you could be in trouble not just in some imagined future, but in the intolerant present. 

One of what used to be the bedrock principles of the United States was the official separation of church and state in governance. The Founders had lived through the European wars of religion and seen the results of the oppression of one religion by another, and wrote their concerns into Article VI of the Constitution:

"no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States"

and as the first words of the First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

All of that changed with the guidance memorandum issued by the Office of Personnel Management on July 28th, titled "Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace." Under the guise of protecting Americans' First Amendment rights of religious belief and expression, Der Furor's administration has pandered to the "religious" right* by permitting ... and all but encouraging ... the intrusion of religious proselytization into federal offices.

The OPM memo attempts to sidestep the issue of religious beliefs affecting superior/subordinate relations when it says that

"The constitutional rights of supervisors to engage in such conversations [regarding religious topics] should not be distinguished from non-supervisory employees by the nature of their supervisory roles. However, unwillingness to engage in such conversations may not be the basis of workplace discipline." 

Riddle me this, Batman: do you really believe that a supervisor who believes her religious beliefs and attitudes are superior to those of her subordinate - to the extent that she tries to convince that subordinate change his beliefs to match her own - can be a fair and otherwise nonjudgmental boss?

Appendix 1 of the OPM memo gives examples of "permissible religious expression in the workplace." Here are two examples:

"During a break, an employee may engage another in polite discussion of why his faith is correct and why the non-adherent should re-think his religious beliefs. However, if the nonadherent requests such attempts to stop, the employee should honor the request." And if the first employee declines to honor the request, what then? The overall tone of the memo suggests that the freedom of a religious employee to "engage" with others - even when that engagement is unwanted - takes precedence over a "nonadherent" employee's freedom to avoid such engagement. 

"A park ranger leading a tour through a national park may join her tour group in prayer." This implies that if a tour group should spontaneously break out in prayer, the ranger is free to join in. Can the ranger stop the tour herself and ask the group to join in prayer? Under this administration, almost certainly.

The First Amendment specifies two things: that the government may not establish a state religion, and that citizens are free to worship as they see fit. While it is arguably true that various forms of Christianity have predominated the religious character of the country, this is not because the federal government has "established" them, but because the majority of the citizens have historically belonged to Christian forms of worship. One wonders whether the drafter of the OPM memo would react the same way to complaints about Jews, Muslims, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, or Satanists, rather than Christians, proselytizing in federal workplaces. 

I think I know the answer.

Have a good day. Observe the tenets of your religion, and respect the right of others to observe their own. Or not.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* I use the term "religious" advisedly, because the language and actions of many self-described devout Christians in this country bear only the most tenuous relationship to the actual teachings of Christ.

Poetry Sunday

In case you ever wondered where economists come from, here's the answer ...

Smart

by Shel Silverstein

My dad gave me one dollar bill

'Cause I'm his smartest son,

And I swapped it for two shiny quarters

'Cause two is more then one!

And then I took the quarters 

And traded them to Lou

For three dimes - I guess he didn't know

That three is more than two!

Just then, along came old blind Bates

And just 'cause he can't see

He gave me four nickels for my three dimes, 

And four is more than three!

And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs

Down at the seed-feed store,

And the fool gave me five pennies for them, 

And five is more than four!

And I went and showed my dad, 

And he got red in the cheeks 

And closed his eyes and shook his head--

Too proud of me to speak!

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Whatever hopes you may have had that August will be better than July may as well be packed away for possible use in future months ...

Mathematician and satirical lyricist Tom "The Masochism Tango" Lehrer died at age 97; the Senate voted - on party lines, of course - to confirm Der Furor's controversial pet lawyer Emil Bove to a lifetime appointment as a federal appeals court judge; the Republican-dominated Texas legislature has redrawn the map for the state’s U.S. House districts, carving up five Democratic districts so that Republicans would be likely to win them in future elections; in an attempt to give the plain and tawdry White House a grander, more Versailles-ish air, Der Furor announced that, having paved over the Rose Garden, he will replace all or part of the East Wing of the White House with a $200 million, 90,000 square foot ballroom, supposedly paid for by Der Furor and other donors; and in Turkey, a 38 year old British man died at an Istanbul clinic, apparently of complications from a hair transplant.

This week, a collection of cartoons about letters, numbers, and other symbols ... because, why not?

For all you English Literature majors ...

I think she's in for a long wait ...

Uh, oh ...

When it's time to tell the kids about the colons and the semicolons ...

Busted!

If you know, you know ...

It's one of those 50 ways ...

Uh, oh ...

What tomfoolery, indeed ...

True ...

Have a good day and a great weekend, and come back tomorrow for Poetry Sunday and Shel Silverstein's poem about smart kids. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

Great Moments in Editing and Signage

New month, new collection of great moments in editorial and signage! Let's get to it ...

Well, I guess it's roughage of a sort ...

Must be for hard-core MAGAts ...

Well, what else would the charge be? ...

Taking care of the baby ...

No comment ...

I hope so ...

I know what they meant, but the headline is just too accurate for the present day ...

Some headline writer waited for years for the chance to write this one ...

The season is almost upon us ... get ready!

Slow news day ...

And the new month is off to a fast start! Have a good day and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday - more thoughts then.

Bilbo

Thinking About the Cost of Health Care

One of the most maddening things about life in these United States is the way we provide and charge for health care. The cost of medicines and medical procedures is enormous, how they are calculated is completely opaque, and the cost of even the most basic health insurance is beyond the reach of many lower-income Americans, particularly as Congressional Republicans move to gut the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid programs which helps make care halfway affordable.

I got to thinking about this topic once again during the run-up to and post-mortems of the passage of Der Furor's "One Big Beautiful Bill," which pays part of its tax giveaways to the wealthy and big business by imposing new limits on Medicaid in the name of "preventing fraud, waste, and abuse." Depending on how you crunch the numbers, as many as 11 million Americans could lose what little health insurance they already have (but not, of course, until after the midterms and the 2028 general election, at which time the GOP will be able to pin the blame on the Democrats who will be in office trying to clean up the mess).

Now, I'm not on Medicaid, but I am covered by Medicare and Tricare (for military retirees) and I have a good Medicare Advantage plan (Medicare Part C), so at least for the moment, I'm more or less protected from the current mess ... but I'm sure it's coming. Here's a personal example of how I'm thinking about it.

Last month I had surgery to replace my right knee. The total cost of the surgery*, including six in-home visits by a physical therapist, was $28,233.00. My total "co-pays" came to $250.00.

Not bad, eh? But riddle me this, Batman: who paid the remaining $27,983.00?

The answer, of course, is that you and I did, through the taxes we paid that fund Social Security and Medicare, plus the health insurance premiums we pay for our private coverage. 

Could I have afforded to pay $28,233.00 out of pocket for my knee surgery? Hardly. But I'm very fortunate to have good health insurance. Many other, less fortunate, Americans would have been ruined by such a bill ... and are, every day.

Another way in which I am fortunate is that, as a military retiree, I am able to get my prescription medications at no cost from military pharmacies. At the moment, I am taking five different, relatively common medications for various ailments. It's all but impossible to calculate how much I would have to pay for these "on the outside," as the cost depends upon type of insurance, the pharmacy used, whether coupons are available, whether the brand-name or generic version is dispensed, the phase of the moon, or whether the manufacturer offers some type of discount for certain patients. As best I can estimate (thank you, Google), the cash cost for a three-month supply of my five meds - were I to have to pay it myself - is about $800, or $3,200 per year. If I needed more exotic medications for other conditions, the cash cost could easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars. 

This, if I may comment, is obscene.

It doesn't have to be this way, but it's the way we've allowed it to develop. Medicine has become a commercial commodity in modern America, subject to economic pressures of profit and loss rather than the Hippocratic Oath. Instead of the admonition to "first, do no harm," it is now "first, make a profit."

My personal opinion is that a single-payer national insurance system, augmented by private insurance as desired, would be preferable to the mess we have now. I understand that there are arguments for and against such a system, but the most common one - I don't want faceless government bureaucrats making decisions about my health care, doesn't make a great deal of sense when you consider that under the current system, faceless insurance company bureaucrats actually are making decisions about your health care.

And so are the Republicans who voted for the "Big Beautiful Bill."

Have a good day. Stay healthy - you can't afford not to. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

*Source: Historical summary of claims provided by my healthcare provider.

Greed, Inflation, and the Personalized Cost of Living

I will admit up front, as I often have in the past, that you could put everything I know about economics into your navel and still have room for a herd of elephants and a brass band. But the more I think about the subject, the more I have come to believe that much of it is a scam based on human behavioral psychology. A good specific example of this is the concept of inflation, which the International Monetary Fund defines this way:

"Inflation is the rate of increase in prices over a given period of time. Inflation is typically a broad measure, such as the overall increase in prices or the increase in the cost of living in a country. But it can also be more narrowly calculated—for certain goods, such as food, or for services, such as a haircut, for example. Whatever the context, inflation represents how much more expensive the relevant set of goods and/or services has become over a certain period, most commonly a year."

Economists tell us that inflation is a feature, rather than a bug - a constant force to be managed by professionals who adjust interest rates, tinker with the money supply, apply or adjust tariffs, etc. I, however, expert economist that I am, think that there's a much more simple reason for inflation: greed.

I've thought about this a lot lately, most recently when I saw this amazing article by Irina Ivanova in Fortune magazine: Delta Moves Toward Eliminating Set Prices in Favor of AI That Determines How Much You Personally Will Pay for a Ticket. Yes, Dear Readers, if you fly on a Delta flight, the price you pay will be calculated by an AI algorithm that determines the maximum amount it expects you can afford. Or, to paraphrase an often-attributed quote: plucking the maximum number of feathers from the goose with the smallest amount of hissing. This is not inflation. This is raw, unashamed greed.

Much of what we automatically blame on "inflation" is nothing more than greed, couched in the lofty language of economic laws and forces like "supply and demand" or "charging what the market will bear." It's why you can't afford to buy a house, why your weekly food budget is gone by Wednesday, and why you can pay for decades and your student loan balance is still in five figures. It's greed, and we accept it because it's easy to shrug and blame "inflation" for which there is no justification*.

Greed. It's the only law of economics you need to know.

Have as good a day as those who make the economic law will let you afford. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* I can see the price of something going up if there's a rational explanation for it ... for instance, if a particular mineral needed to build a widget is now harder to mine because the easily accessible deposits are exhausted, the cost of extraction may be greater. I can get that. But if the underlying costs don't change, greed is the only rationale for raising prices.

Musical Sunday

Hello, operator? I'm trying to reach a number that seems to be out of order. Can you help? ... 

Here are the lyrics of the 1986 ELO hit "Calling America," if you want to follow along: 

Somebody told her that there was a place like heaven

Across the water on a 747

Yeah, we're living in

In a modern world

 

And pretty soon she's really got the notion

Of flying out across the big blue ocean

Yeah, we're living in

In a modern world

 

Talk is cheap on satellite

But all I get is static information

I'm still here re-dial on automatic

 

Calling America (can't get a message through)

Calling America (that's what she said to do)

Calling America (that's where she has to be)

Calling America (she left a number for me)

Calling America

 

But I'm just talking to a satellite

Twenty thousand miles up in the sky each night

Yeah, we're living in

In a modern world

 

All I had to do was pick up the phone

I'm out in space, trying to talk to someone

Yeah, we're living in

In a modern world (in a modern world)

 

She left a number I could call

But no one's there, no one at all

There must be something going wrong

That number just rings on and on

 

Calling America (can't get a message through)

Calling America (that's what she said to do)

Calling America (that's where she has to be)

Calling America (she left a number for me)

Calling America

 

Said she'd call when she'd been gone a while

Guess she's missing me across the miles

Yeah, we're living in

In a modern world

 

Calling America (can't get a message through)

Calling America (that's what she said to do)

Calling America (that's where she has to be)

Calling America (she left a number for me)

Calling America

Calling America

Calling America

Calling America

Calling America

Calling America

If you get an answer that makes sense, let me know.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Boy, am I glad this month is almost over ...

In their latest attempt to curry favor with Der Furor, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee have introduced legislation to rename the Kennedy Center Opera House after Melania Trump; Delta Airlines has announced it will use Artificial Intelligence to calculate fares for each passenger, boosting profit margins by maximizing what individual passengers pay for fares; because there isn't enough violence in the world, Thailand and Cambodia are now fighting along their border; French President Emanuel Macron and his wife are threatening to sue conservative influencer Candace Owens over her claims that Brigitte Macron is actually a man; and in (where else?) Florida, the Vice Mayor of Vero Beach, who is also the owner of a local beer and wine bar, is under investigation for sponsoring a “sexualized performance advertised to children” at her establishment ... lending new meaning to the term "Vice Mayor."

This week, apropos of nothing, a collection of cartoons taking off on popular song lyrics ...

With apologies to Harry Belafonte ...

And to The Eagles ...

And The Beatles ...

Had Gershwin's career taken a different turn ...

When the horse is in witness protection ...

Fun with unintelligible lyrics ...

Composite pickup lines ...

The merchandizing of the Mamas and the Papas ...

Bad day for the sketch artist ...

Not quite what the boxer expected, I expect ...

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when Musical Sunday makes a very long-distance call.

Bilbo

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for July, 2025

As we close in on the end of another month of executive, legislative, and judicial turmoil, we find the latest opportunity to recognize excellence* in ass clownery. As always, the bench is deep and the challenge of plumbing its depths daunting, but if nobody else is willing to step up to the task, I'll do it once again.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, we present 

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown Award for July, 2025

to

The Republican Regrets Coalition:

Senators Bill Cassidy (R, LA), 

Lisa Murkowski (R, AK),

Josh Hawley (R, MO), and

Thom Tillis (R, NC)

Der Furor's absolute domination of Republican senators and representatives is well-documented, as is his ability to force them to make decisions and support positions that are antithetical to the interests of their constituents. This has seldom been better illustrated than by their votes in favor of confirming unqualified administration appointees and of passing the "Big Beautiful Bill" which is packed with measures detrimental to many segments of the population ... but which will manifest themselves in voters' lives and pocketbooks well after those who supported them are out of office. The four senators we dishonor with today's award represent some of the most blatant examples of voting as their leader demands, then publicly regretting their actions:

Senator Cassidy, himself a doctor (a gastroenterologist), agreed to support the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr (not a physician or scientist of any kind), to be Secretary of Health and Human Services only after Mr Kennedy promised not to upend the nation’s system for evaluating vaccines. Kennedy went on to fire all 17 members of the vaccine advisory panel, replacing them with eight new members, some of whom have histories of vaccine skepticism. Cassidy then complained that “many” of the new members Kennedy appointed to the panel “do not have significant experience studying microbiology, epidemiology or immunology.” Oops.

Senator Murkowski insisted that she was responsible for taking care of residents of Alaska, and said "I know that in many parts of the country, there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don't like that." Oops.

Senator Hawley (a two-time previous winner**), just two weeks after he did as he was told and voted for Der Furor's BBB, introduced legislation that would counter its cuts to Medicaid and repair the damage he’d just endorsed. “Now is the time to prevent any future cuts to Medicaid from going into effect,” he said in a statement. Oops.

Senator Tillis decided not to run for reelection after regretting his own votes in favor of, among other things, Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense, too late realizing that the man was "out of his depth" and guilty of "making amateurish decisions" in the position. Oops. 

It has become abundantly clear over the years that people who hitch their wagons to Der Furor tend to end up with their reputations in tatters, being demeaned, insulted, and cast aside when they are no longer useful or when they wake up to the devil's bargain they've made. Today's winners exemplify the sidelining of honor and moral character demanded by the MAGA world. 

Oopsie.

Have a good day, and make sure your elected officials at all levels are doing their jobs, not blindly kissing the backside of a man unworthy of their willing degradation.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* If I may be forgiven for using the word in this context.

** Special Award, January 2021 (shared with Senator Ted Cruz); and Left-Cheek Award for March, 2022 (shared with the other GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee). Senator Hawley thus receives his second Poison Ivy Cluster.

The Deep State, the Administrative State, and the State of Hysteria

One of the ways in which Der Furor was able twice to capture the presidency was by playing to  conservative anger over the so-called Deep State - a hypothetical unauthorized secret network of powerful individuals and agencies that operate independently of properly elected political leaders to pursue their own agendas and goals - a sort-of modern day Illuminati. 

The Deep State concept is related to another term, the Administrative State, which refers to the array of executive branch agencies at all levels which have the power and authority to write, interpret, and enforce their own regulations.

The Deep State is a mainstay of GOP politics, useful in explaining why their social and economic policies don't work by pinning blame on a shadowy cabal of rogue bureaucrats*, and of books and films eager to mine new sources of villainy for their heroes to fight. The Administrative State is also a focus of conservative anger, equally useful for explaining their policy failures, but without the added bonus of baked-in evildoers seeking world domination. 

The Administrative State is a result of the expansion of government and the complexity of the world over the years. As the federal government grew in size and complexity, ever-larger bureaucracies staffed with subject matter specialists were needed to carry out the responsibilities assigned by Congress ... including the authority (as we noted above) to write, interpret, and enforce their own regulations within the parameters authorized in legislation.

For conservatives who are by nature disdainful of regulations imposed by tyrannical governments™ they do not control, the Administrative State is an anathema to be opposed at all costs. Regulations imposed by government agencies, they argue, are infringements on personal freedoms and are invalid unless specifically approved by Congress as the directly-elected representatives of the people - not by faceless bureaucrats™ answerable to no one.

When last I checked, there were 535 elected members of Congress (435 Representatives and 100 Senators), who have in recent years been unable to do as fundamental a constitutionally-mandated function as publish a budget ... indeed, they have been unable to do little more than adjourn to prevent having to vote on releasing the dreaded Epstein Files™, propose renaming the Kennedy Center Opera House after Melania Trump, pass gigantic pieces of legislation that they regret and immediately begin un-legislating, and steadfastly resist anything proposed by the opposition party ...

The Deep State doesn't exist except in the fever dreams of conspiracy believers. The Administrative State does. And as the Republican party races to dismantle it, eliminating the experts and specialists who have kept us safe, healthy, and protected from abuse of the law, we won't be long in regretting its loss.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Who are also satanist Democrats, pedophiles, and baby eaters.

Poetry Sunday

Perhaps we need a new approach to self-defense in these difficult days. Nature offers a solution ...

The best defense is offensive

by Marge Piercy

The turkey vulture,

a shy bird ungainly on the ground 

but massively graceful in flight, 

responds to attack 

uniquely.

Men have contempt for this scavenger 

because he eats without killing.

When an enemy attacks, 

the turkey vulture vomits:

the shock and disgust of the predator 

are usually sufficient to effect his escape.

He loses only his dinner, 

easily replaced.

All day I have been thinking 

how to adapt this method of resistance.

Sometimes only the stark 

will to disgust 

prevents our being consumed: 

there are clearly times 

when we must make a stink 

to survive.

Since the news usually makes me want to vomit, this may be a reasonable, if messy, approach to demonstrating my opinion.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

I wish I'd kept the receipt for this week so that I could exchange it ...

The White House has announced that Der Furor is suffering from a chronic vein condition that Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described as "tissue damage from frequent handshaking;" singer Connie Francis, the first woman in history to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart, died at 87;  an Israeli shell struck the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing three people and wounding 10 others, including the parish priest; Congress has approved and sent to Der Furor for approval legislation to claw back billions of dollars previously approved for public broadcasting that conservatives believe does not support their agenda; and in Rockland, Maine, a Vermont man was arrested and charged with a long list of offenses after he followed a woman into the police station parking lot where she'd gone for help, crashed into a police cruiser, fled the scene, and resisted arrest.

This week, as we anxiously wait to see what happens to our health care now that Congress has decided we need to pay more for it, a collection of cartoons about medical care ...

Don't you love the wall-to-wall advertising of drugs?

My doctor told me something like this the last time I saw her ...

You didn't believe that voice-over in the ad that said, "If you can't afford your prescription, (insert name of pharmaceutical company here) may be able to help" did you?

This is the one authorized for Medicaid patients ...

I think we can all expect the same thing ...

Yes. Yes, they do ...

My doctor told me this, too ...

This is the EKG you'll be getting when the originalists write your insurance policy ...

This is exactly how it works, isn't it? ...

That's how the system actually works ...

And that's it for this week, as we attempt once again to show that laughter is the best medicine ... which is a good thing, as it's the only one Medicaid will probably pay for going forward.

Have a good day and a great weekend. Stay cool and stay dry, if you can. More thoughts tomorrow, when Poetry Sunday returns. 

Bilbo